I don’t seem to have had much time lately to write in this blog. We use blogs in work to record details of every task we complete. I posted 7 entries today – just over 2,200 words. Writing in work is much easier because I know what I’m supposed to be writing about. I really not sure what to write about here.

I’ve been very busy lately and there are lots of things that I haven’t got round to doing. I would really like to organise a Belfast.pm meeting. It seems that all the spare time I have for doing Perl related things has been going into the organisation of YAPC::Europe. I would like to get to sleep earlier. I should really be asleep now but I find it hard to get to sleep when Marty is away. I need to finish putting the Christmas decorations away. I’ve just noticed that the Christmas tree lights are lying in a corner of the living room. I only got round to putting the Christmas tree out last weekend. I really need to tidy up my living room. Tony pointed out yesterday that it’s quite difficult to get across the room to put a disc in the DVD player for fear of falling over something. I could continue with the list of things that I need to do but I’ll only scare myself.

Where does all my time go? It seems that working full-time and studying part-time has taken over my life.

Homer: Lisa, if the Bible has taught us nothing else — and it hasn’t — it’s that girls should stick to girls’ sports, such as hot-oil wrestling, foxy boxing, and such-and-such.

Marge: I think women should be able to play any sport men play, but hockey is so violent and dangerous — look at Milhouse’s teeth.[opens her hand]

Bart: Mom, will you stop showing us those?

– The Simpsons, Lisa on Ice

I went to see the Giants play in Belfast on Friday night. This was the first time I had ever seen an ice hockey match. Belfast has only acquired a team in the last few years and the only sport I watch on TV is Formula 1 (which is Tony’s fault). Marc had metioned to me that these could be quite violent but I must admit that I didn’t expect the players to stop playing and start fighting in the middle of the game. Nor was I expecting one of the players to smash up his hockey stick when he got sent off for trying to smash up one of the other players. And to add to my disbelief when two of the players started to fight the crowd stood up and cheered and the referees stood back and watched. All in all it was a strange experience.

A while back I made the decision to change the design of my blog. The design I had was adequate when I first started blogging but I went off it the first time I saw Dan’s blog. Using a standard MT template was really useful to me at the start, as I am not a designer, but I decided to use a designer to create the current look. My new blog design has been live now for the past few months. I really liked it when I first saw it and I still really like it today. Thanks Stephen!.